


The Ram and the Hare

by 2ni, mitspeiler



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bets, College AU, Humanstuck, LMAO, Love, Multi, Nic Cage mentions, corpse parties, homestfuck, polyamory mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:57:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2782310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2ni/pseuds/2ni, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitspeiler/pseuds/mitspeiler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>mitspeiler: John and Aradia embark on a deadly wager, a game of pride and cunning ensues and only one will survive... (well not really)<br/>2ni: Aradia and John get competitive as pales but then rED and HAPPINESS occurs</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which John Egbert Needs a Girlfriend

The new Nic Cage movie, _Con Air 2: Rise of the Parazombies,_ had just come out, so obviously John had to go and watch it.  Normally he’d have dragged every single one of his best friends to the event, but over the years they had become wise to his tricks;  Dave had designed an app that predicted the release dates of terrible movies, and distributed it to John’s closest circle of friends, so they could all make plans well in advance.  He didn’t terribly mind, the euphoria of watching his favorite actor in another stunning display of thespianism was enough to satisfy him. However, John was not alone. He’d made plenty of new friends since coming to college, and, while she did not share his passion for the Cageman, Aradia Megido loved her some zombie movies.  Almost a little too much.

She stood next to him, near the back of the line, biting her lip (painted a dangerous shade of red) in anticipation.

“We should have cut class to wait in line,” she sighed, twisting a length of hair around her finger.  “The suspense is killing me.”

“Next time,” John promised, slamming his fist into his palm.  “I am going to skip anything I need to skip, even if it’s my own funeral,”  he poked her in the arm,  “Even if it’s _your_ funeral!”

Aradia gasped in an exaggerated manner.  “Wow John, you’d skip _my_ corpse party just for Nic Cage?  The _bumpingest corpse party ever?!_  I’d have gone through so much trouble to make sure everyone had a great time and you’d just be out here waiting to see Nic Cage in some movie that probably doesn’t involve zombies.  I don’t think my ghost would appreciate that!”

The two of them laughed a little, before standing in silence. This time, like most times, Aradia broke it.

“On the subject of my death, what happens if I die before the next upcoming Nic Cage movie? You’d be all on your own! You need a girlfriend,”  she winked,  “Or is it a boyfriend you want?”  With that she started poking him in the rib with her elbow, perhaps a bit more zealously than she should have.

“Ow,” he said, jumping a few feet out of line, “stop that!  I thought you would appreciate the corpse party.  And no I am not a homosexual; I like girls...”  An odd thought struck his mind at his own comment: they’d only known each other for a few months but he enjoyed hanging out with Aradia, crazy though she might be at times.  What’s more, it was not hard to see that she was very pretty.  

The hispanic girl had smooth, coffee-and-cream skin, and her long brown hair flowed wavy and untamed down most of her back, except where it was pulled into two big side-buns that looked a bit like roses, or ram horns.  She had a big toothy smile, with just a hint of menace to it.

He was almost tempted to ask if she was offering, jokingly of course.  Aradia had only ever talked about having dated girls, and as far as he could tell she was a lesbian.  He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. Regardless, just then, something divided his attention.

Unknown to him, a girl had been watching his friendly squabble with Aradia.  As soon as he had jumped aside, the girl, tall and athletic, wearing glasses, had jumped right into the vacated space, with a languid “can I cut you guys?  Thanks, you’re such a cute couple, and so generous too.  I’m jealous.”

Aradia was about to speak up, but John pushed right back into line with a rushed little, “oh no, it’s not any trouble!”

Aradia snicked and whispered into John’s ear, her breath tickling his hair follicles; “You just let her walk all over us because you’re not getting any.”

John scoffed and turned to face her, his face only a few inches from hers in the tight space of the line.  “You have no clue,” he hissed.  “I am what is traditionally called a _gentleman_ , you silly broad.”

Aradia stuck her tongue out at him.  “ _Whatever_ , you just think that being nice will help you get into that chick’s pants.”  She winked.

John blustered and whispered back, just as the line started to move.   “That’s a really shitty thing to say!  I’m not some internet Nice Guy bemoaning the fact that women don’t like me; if I wanted to go out with a girl then I would just ask her!”

By now their whispers had grown loud enough that people, if they cared to listen, might be able to hear the gist of what they were talking about.  Most were too busy thinking about the movie, however.

 

Except, that is, for one.  The girl who had cut in line,Vriska Serket, was bored and needed something to occupy her time.  Her phone had just died, so she’d taken to eavesdropping, and the couple that had let her cut seemed to be having a lover’s quarrel, and it seemed to be about her.  

“Stop talking about my dangle,” the boy hissed.  Oh, that was _adorable_.

“She is _really_ pretty,” the girl said.  “You _should_ ask her out actually!”

She grinned, showing her unnaturally sharp teeth.  She loved being beautiful.  She’d never been a homewrecker before, but it might be fun to give it a shot.

“No, we just met her, that’s kind of weird, we don’t even know her name!” the boy argued.  

Oh?  That was new.  Were these guys... _swingers????????_  Now Vriska was even more intrigued.

“Well John,” the girl said, cracking her knuckles loudly, tone going flirtatious, _“If you don’t then I will!”_

Vriska’s eyes went wide.  Hellllllll yessssssss, she thought, they’re polyamorous and looking for a new partner.  She’d gotten a good look at them; the girl had crazy curves, and the boy’s dorky exterior hid a _fine_ physique.  Plus she loved light skin and glasses on boys.  She pivoted on her heel, and shot the pair an evil grin; they seemed startled.  “Here’s my number,” she said, giving them each a card.  “Call me after the movie, I’m plenty game if you’re still interested.”  Her wink was _phenomenally_ dirty.

*********

The movie was great, at least in both of their opinions.  Afterwards, they went to eat at a little burger joint across the street from the theater.  It was now late in the evening; the sun had already set, but a smear of pink was visible over the rooftops, and only the brightest of stars were visible.  

“I’ll have the triple lamburger, medium rare, with extra bacon,” said Aradia, scanning the menu quickly, “and the biggest serving of fries?  Double it, and give me one of those.  Ooh, and one of those little cherry pies too!” She turned to John enthusiastically.  “What about you?  I’ll pay!”

“Umm, I will just have whatever falls off your plate,” he snickered.  

She blew a loud raspberry at him.  “There isn’t going to be anything left,” she warned.  John saw the look in her eyes; she was dead serious.

“Fish and chips,” he said with a sigh.

John watched Aradia eat; she was done faster than he was, and leaned back in her chair contentedly.  

“I was really sick when I was thirteen,” she explained, “It shriveled my sense of taste and almost killed me.  When I finally got better and could actually taste food, again I realized it was a _precious gift._ ”  

Before John could really process that, Aradia pointed at him with a toothpick in accusation.

“You want to call that girl from the line earlier?” she asked.

“Um, not really,” he said.  “I’m pretty sure she thought we wanted a threesome.”

“Not a bad idea,” Aradia said, wiggling her eyebrows so they looked like little caterpillars at a rave, dancing their tiny hearts out.  

“Whatever,” John scoffed, smiling deviously, “Mostly she wanted me though, obviously.  You were just incidental to the threesome.”

Aradia rolled her eyes at him.  “You couldn’t be more wrong!  Vriska wanted me more!”

“I’m way hotter than you are!” John retorted.

“No, I am!”

“My butt alone is way hotter than you are!”

“Prove it!”

John stood up, looked her dead in the eye, and began fumbling with his belt-buckle.  Aradia threw napkins at him until he sat back down again, giggling.

“I have a better idea,” Aradia said after a short while.  “Let’s make a bet!”

“What kind of bet?”

“I bet that I can get more phone numbers than you can in 24 hours, starting tomorrow at sunrise,” Aradia grinned as she spoke, eyes taking on a manic gleam.

“What does the loser have to do?” John asked with a smirk.

“The loser will forever be known as the ugly, undatable friend,” Aradia said with grim finality, “and will have to refer to the winner as either senpai or her imperial sexiness.”

“Deal,” John said, extending his hand, “and just for the record, it will be his imperial sexiness."

They shook hands.  The game had begun.  Somewhere in the world, Dave Strider felt the need to pose like a team with himself, because shit just got real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2ni: 1) This ship needs so many more shippers oh my god  
> 2) I’m sorry I haven’t upd9ed my last fanfiction; I wrote a chapter on my phone but it got deleted so now i am in tears  
> 3) Pls comment.  
> 4) Tumblr is either Christmaseridan or homestfuck (*wonk*)  
> 9) :o)
> 
>  
> 
> mitspeiler: mittens is back bitches, all hail!  
> I always thought of both John and Aradia as wild cards when it came to shipping; I can ship them with anyone.  
> Also our writing team is the Registered Trademarks, which is a registered trademark don’t steal kthx


	2. The Scarlet AA

It was a widely known fact that Aradia was competitive and that she planned to win, and she planned to have fun whilst doing it too.

Her alarm was set at 7am and an extra half an hour was put into making sure she looked her absolute best, although in the end she didn’t look much different than was usual.  Her outfit consisted of a burgundy t-shirt that shamelessly showed off her cleavage and a long grey skirt that hugged her hips enticingly.  More importantly there was just a tiny hint of _something_ done with her makeup, a little touch here and there that subtly indicated a small amount of effort had gone into her normally effortless good looks.  A bit of smokiness around the eyes, a slight teasing to her curls, and _voila_ , she was ready to win hearts.

As soon as she was done, she packed a bag of things necessary for her day and made her way to the nearest cafeteria for a Sunday breakfast. It wasn’t something she did often, but today she had to get as many numbers as possible, and that meant she’d have to get out and get her social on.

When she got there, Aradia went in line and spent a few moments deciding what she’d be having before noticing the guy in front of her.

He was in a wheelchair, which was obviously the first thing she noticed about him, but he looked to be her own age. His skin was but a few shades darker than her own, his hair was a dark mess of a mohawk and from what Aradia could see, he was very, _very_ , cute, like a puppy who thinks it might never be a grown dog.  It warmed her heart.

Well hello, cellphone-number number one.

She tapped him lightly on the shoulder, to which he flinched slightly and turned to face her, and _oh was he cute_... Hot damn.

His eyes flicked up nervously at her, then away, then back, then away again, and Aradia gave him a large, warm, friendly, if slightly flirtatious, smile to let him know that she meant well.

“Hello!” she greeted, extending her hand so he could shake it. “The name’s Aradia!”

He stared at her, unsure of how to respond, before coming to his senses and replying with a slightly shaky “Uh, hi, I’m Tavros,” and greeting her soft hand with his.

“So,” she asked, the two of them moving forward with the line, “Are you here alone, or were you planning on meeting anyone?”

“Alone,” he answered, “why?”

“You’re cute, and I’m interested,” she put simply, “Are you?”

Tavros’s eyes went wide. “Really?! Uh... I mean, yes! Yeah! Sure...” he stammered.

Aradia gave him her signature wink and the two of them ordered and found a table, making small talk and eating their meals.

After a while, Aradia decided that while cute, he was not her type. Tavros was lacking in real self confidence, seeming painfully aware of even the slightest of his movements, every twitch of his face shouting to the world his concern over his perceived inadequacy. Aradia would like to be this boy’s friend and help him toughen up a bit, but she didn’t think she wanted to date him anytime soon. Nonetheless, walking away without a number would make the entire morning unproductive and time-wasting.

She glanced at her watch and realised she needed to scram as soon as possible if she planned on getting as many numbers as she needed.

“So, Tav,” Aradia purred, leaning across the table and closer into his personal space, “You see, I need to get going, but I’d hate to never see you again. Do you have a number I could have?”

A not-so-faint blush coloured his cheeks; in fact it would be fair to say that his whole upper face turned a sort of chocolatey red. He nodded enthusiastically.

Aradia smiled, taking out a small notepad and pen, and then handed it to Tavros. “Fan _tastic!_ Just write your name and number there and I’ll contact you when I can!”

He practically attacked the pad with that pen, slashing his number onto it as if it had wronged him, and Aradia left the cafe without another word.

The next number Aradia planned to get was from someone she barely knew, and didn’t really like, but she knew he already had a massive thing for her, making him an easy target; Equius Zahhak, the sweaty dude who worked at the local gym she went to.

One quick stroll late and, she was there. As hoped, so was he.

“Hey, Equius!” she waved, and he appeared in front of her in record time.

“Aradia! Hello,” he rumbled, slightly out of breath, “What are you doing here?”

Aradia raised an eyebrow in a joking manner. “I planned to do some quick exercise, unless you had a better idea in mind.”

Equius’s mouth gaped open at her flirty comment. “Oh, uh, yes, of course... Exercise...”

Aradia smirked and dropped her stuff on the ground.  “Would you like to help me stretch, or should I get changed into my gym clothes first?”

*********

The next hour or so was spent making Equius sweat, using a few select “lood” positions and comments.  Of course, the boy was already in so deep that he barely needed it; just a touch here and a dirty joke there, and he was putty in her hands; sweaty, sweaty putty.

Aradia left him a bit for a quick shower and to change back from her gym clothes (normally she’d just wear sweats and a tanktop, but today she had a new, silvery-grey sports bra).  As soon as she was done, she went back to Equius who was predictably, blatantly waiting outside the girl’s changing room for her.

“How was your shower?” he breathed. It was actually kinda creepy, but Aradia rolled with it because it was convenient.

“It was _great_ , thanks for asking. It was a pity you couldn’t join, actually...”

His eyes widened behind his cracked shades as he used the already drenched towel around his neck to try and wipe away some fresh sweat from his forehead.

“So, if you could just write your number and name here...” Aradia said, handing him the same notepad but on a different page. He gladly did as such, although he ending up breaking the pen before he could finish, ruining the page with a spurt of ink.  Aradia sighed and fished another pen out of her purse, and when he was done she took back the pen and paper, gave him double pistols, and half skipped out the door.

The next place she decided to visit was a nearby beach and before she knew it she was already hitting up yet another person; this time it was a pretty girl in a black tank top and a colourful skirt with equally colorful jewellery. Her name was Feferi, and she apparently went outside often, judging from her tan.

Things actually moved pretty fast with her and one thing led to another and after barely half an hour of knowing each other, the two girls were making out on the sand. A dirty idea came to Aradia’s mind and as Fef was busy on Aradia’s lips, Aradia swiftly brought out her phone and captured a picture worth a thousand words, and sent it to John with nothing but a “;)”.

For some reason, though, Aradia felt sort of guilty afterwards, but she brushed it off and decided to spend some more time getting to know this Feferi girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2ni: *psst* arafef is amazing it’s such a shame I was so brief with her bit 
> 
> mittens: Aradia being a pimp, nuff said.  
> (Actually we had no idea what to actually do with Arafef except as a vehicle to move the plot along like the cold unthinking shippers that we are)  
> glad to see 2ni and I have a reasonably similar writing style and headcanons, or this would be hard and impossible!


	3. The Gloves Come Off and So Does the Shirt

“The contents of this text message are highly disturbing,” Rose drawled, a slight smirk twisting her mouth indicating that she did not find them disturbing whatsoever.

“Can you give me the phone back?” John asked, his face reddening just slightly more.

“In a minute,” Rose said, just a bit hastily, trying not to stare.

John, unlike Aradia, was not an early riser.  He’d gotten up out of bed around ten, to meet his childhood friend Rose for brunch, a very WASPy thing that she did only half ironically.  On the way there, he’d received a text from Aradia that chilled him to the core; a selfie of the woolly-haired girl having a very steamy makeout with a curvaceous swimmer down at the beach.

John groaned, removing his glasses and face-palming.  “That girl is her third phone number! I hadn’t even woken up by the time she had three similar encounters.  Can you even imagine it!?  Aradia, making out with three women in the space of a few hours!  And just look at her; Aradia is fucking hot!  Stands to reason that Aradia can just like, pick out any girl she wants and just, fuckin, snap her fingers and suddenly makeouts!  I mean look at that girl in the picture, she’s fine as hell!  Imagine Aradia making out with three of them, it’s maddening!”  He groaned hard enough to make his throat taste salty and slammed his fists down on either side of his waffle stack.

Rose meanwhile had gone from a tiny smirk to a huge smile by the end of John’s spiel, and her pale cheeks had gone a very light pink.  “John I may pass out from the vapors if you keep talking like that, and also I am going to forward this to my own phone.”  John nodded, rolling his eyes, while she tapped a few keys and sent the steamy image off.

“It seems to me John,” she said, straightening her posture, “that the only way to beat her is to fight fire with fire.  Get aggressive.  She showed off her prowess early in the day, now you need to show off yours.”  She gave him a devilish grin.  John squinted at her.

Then she reached across the table, seized him by the lapels, and dragged him over the waffles towards her.  He let out a slight “eep” just before she smashed her black painted lips against his.  They were very soft and he might have enjoyed it if she hadn’t bumped her teeth against his.  She gave his lower lip a little bit of nibbling, and he did enjoy that.  Then the familiar sound of his camera phone snapping a pic snapped him out of it and he broke away.

Rose withdrew, her lipstick smudged, and typed up a quick message.  “The gloves are off Megido,” she narrated, “You don’t intimidate me and I’ll have you know that all things being equal, gentlemen prefer blondes.  Even if you best me in our contest, the only one who will truly have killed me is the even prettier blonde I’ll have betwixt the bedsheets later tonight, and I mean that in the renaissance sense of the word, which is to say orgasm.  Winky face.  Heart. XOXO.  Send.”

John stared, mouth agape.  “That sounds nothing like me,” he finally muttered, wiping the smears of black lipstick off his face.

Rose ignored him.  “Oh that last comment; could you mind going out with my sister tonight?”

John coughed.  “Roxy!?”  He remembered having a crush on the girl growing up, and she still made him nervous.

“The only sister I have,” Rose said, stealing a piece of slightly crushed waffle off his plate.  “It’ll definitely lend your little game some credibility, and if nothing else, you’ll have a pleasant date.”  She winked.  “Time changes people.  You’ve gone from a skinny geek to handsome, muscular geek, and Roxy has been thinking about you differently for a while now.  So what about it?”

John swallowed hard, and nodded.  He was a bit overwhelmed, but more importantly, he was thinking.  Sisters.  Muscular.  Prowess.

“I think I’ll take Roxy on that date tonight,” John said, furrowing his brow, an evil grin on his face.  “But first I’m gonna call Jade!  You’ve shown me the way!”  He pointed at Rose, “and now Jade is going to win me this competition!”

Rose squinted at him for a full minute.  “I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable earlier, now please stop making me uncomfortable,” she said.

John snickered.  “I’m not gonna make out with my sister you dizzy broad!”

Rose let out a sigh of relief.  “Then what’s the plan?”

 

*********

 

Jade stood on John’s campus in her cutest sundress and a white cloche with a green band around it.  She was gazing up at a tall aspen tree next to the science building, its leaves just starting to turn, despondently holding on to a limp length of cotton string.  Her eyes were watery, her lip quivering.  Amidst the green and gold foliage, a diamond of bloody crimson embossed with the SkaiaNet Labs logo sat entangled in the branches.  She began to cry.  “Wont someone please help me!?” she called, cupping her hands to her mouth.  “Please! Anyone!”

Jade, being adorable, instantly attracted a crowd.  But John cut right through it with a confident stride.  “What’s the problem Miss?” he declaimed in a loud, manly voice, back straight, hands on his hips like Superman.  Dad Egbert’s lessons in manliness were finally paying off.

“My kite!” she said, finally bursting completely into tears.  The word “kite” was extended by about sixteen syllables, half of which were either “boo” or “hoo”, and by the end she was just pointing at the tree.

Jade collapsed against John’s chest and she patted her back, shushing her comfortingly.  “Don’t worry little girl,” he said.  They were almost the same height.  “I’ll get down your kite if it’s the last thing I do!”

John let her go and strode forward, like David may have strode towards Goliath.  He took three steps, and then ripped his shirt.  This was not hyperbole.  He did not merely take it off violently with a ripping motion.  He tore the thing clean in half. And threw the fabric bits to the floor.  The crowd gasped.  To say that, underneath his overly baggy outerwear, John Egbert was some kind of marble statue of a particularly sexy deity would be an understatement.  The boy was fucking beautiful.  He stood upon the line between bara and bishonen, and laughed a hearty, Egbertian laugh, making a nonsense of such classifications.

John charged the mighty aspen like a Viking charging his enemy, then grasped the slender white trunk like a man tenderly grasping his lover, and squirreled up the smooth, branchless bark like a particularly short man ascending his lover.

The tree was just a few feet shy of three stories, and John felt a slight touch of vertigo once he reached the leafy crown.  He realized that he could simply have climbed to the roof of the science building and reached out to snatch the kite.  That would have been much less impressive though.

He took the kite, being very careful not to get the tail entangled in the branches, because he didn’t think he’d be able to untangle it with just one hand.  There was a moment when it seemed to snag on a twig, but then the twig pulled free and tumbled to the ground.  John steeled himself and scurried down the tree as quickly as he’d gone up.

Jade rushed over, face glowing.  Thank you, you kind, handsome gorgeous man!”  She leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek, and whispered, “John you owe me so hard for this shit, I can never go to this school now because they’ll think I’m some insipid blob.”

John laughed a full manly belly laugh.  “No problem kid, I’m just that great a guy!  Now run along home!” Under his breath he muttered, “I know a professor over at Humboldt who owes me a few favors; he can help you get into any school in the country, now give everyone your most winning smile and skip away.”

Jade rolled her eyes, and then in an instant, her face transformed, becoming silly, girlish and vapid, a tiny pink flush just under her eyes.  She skipped off, singing a sparkling “la-la-la~!”

The crowd started to disperse, but John felt that there were a lot of eyes on him.  He felt a hand rub his bicep, and a slight chill traveled up from the touch and into his spine.  “Can I help you?” he asked, turning to face the interloper.

“Hey hot stuff,” said a greasy, slimy voice.  Cronus Ampora stood there, groping John, wiggling his eyebrows crazily, puffing a cigarette.  “Can I get your number?”

“Back off bitchtroll,” said a husky, feminine voice groping John from the other side.  John turned only to get a puff of tobacco smoke in his face.  When the haze cleared, making his eyes sting, he saw a girl who reminded him of Aradia, if Aradia were a crazy-eyed girl in a red sailor fuku.  

“He belongs to me, I claim him.”

John chuckled trying to maintain his composure.  In a loud voice he called out, “both of you please, there’s enough of me for everyone!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mittens: now you can argue that the difference between this chapter and the previous one is largely in our two different narrative styles, but in actual fact I am the one who wrote the entire outline for this fic! I just thought to myself, John is not smooth. He can be romantic, and he is certainly not a complete goddamn idiot to the opposite sex, but he isn’t smooth. Dad Egbert probably taught him, but John ignored his lessons, just like every other valuable, manly lesson the man taught him.  
> Oh, and when it comes to families; John and Jade are siblings. Their dad is Dad Egbert, and their grandpa is Grandpa Harley. They probably have spouses of some kind.  
> Damara is Aradia’s long lost half sister by a Japanese mother. She is in the states looking for her biological dad so she can kill him in revenge for abandoning her.  
> The Strilondes are a huge, aristocratic, extended family from The Old Country who are a bit inbred a few generations back, leading to the prevalence of albinism and other mutations in their line. Mutations like flash-stepping, psychic powers, and being able to hear the elder gods whispering behind the walls of the world. Rose, Roxy, and Dave were raised together as sibling despite being cousins, by a staff of martial arts masters and musicians led by Dirk (including Squarewave and Sawtooth). Dave lost his parents at the same time as his twin brother Dave 2...or did he?!  
> Bluh headcanonspolsion.
> 
> 2ni: I would most certainly be lying if I said that wasn’t the most beautiful thing I had ever read :’)


	4. A Day To Ramember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2ni: Aradia gets numbers, encounters John, gets more numbers, feels the feels.  
> Mitspeiler: Aradia encounters a sight most dangerous to her psyche and then has dinner

Time flies when you’re having fun or, in Aradia’s case, enjoying some one-on-one mouth-tussle with a cute girl you met on the beach.

In her defence, Aradia was having a really neat time, but as the minutes turned into nearly two hours and kisses turn into lengthy one-sided conversations about Feferi’s apparent obsession in all things sea-related (not to mention the challenge at hand), Aradia knew she should _reely_ tell this _gill_ fare _whale_ and probably not make plans to _sea_ her again.

Feferi didn’t seem too let down when Aradia departed (which, to be honest, was a little disappointing), nonetheless, the Megido ventured onwards towards her next goal: one of her close friends, Sollux Captor.

On the way, Aradia passed the campus and noticed there was some sort of a small commotion happening near the science building. There was a girl she recognised, despite only meeting her, like, twice, to be John’s sister, Jade, walking away from the scene with her hands covering her face, a sad-looking kite dangling in front of her like a depressed angler-fish’s...angle. Aradia realized she had spent far too much time with Feferi.

“Hey! Jade,” Aradia called out a few times until heard. The green-eyed girl lowered her hands, let out a visible sigh, and made her way towards her.

“Aradia, is it?”

“Yup! What’s got you looking so glum? From the impression I got, you were always so chipper.”

Jade sighed again, adjusting her big, round glasses, “Sorry, just had to do an embarrassing thing in front of a whole bunch of people and I kinda really want to leave as soon as possible.”

“Oh? Was this something to do with that small crowd of people around that tree? I was just about to ask you about that!”

“John made me act like a complete dunce so he could be the hero to my damsel-in-distress just to impress strangers,” Jade groaned, “I looked like such a fool!”

“That sly dog...” Aradia muttered, “Did it work?”

“Yes! People are over there now, congratulating him, admiring him; some are even hitting on him! All because he, very literally, ripped off his stupid shirt, too! What a tool...”

Aradia’s eyes widened considerably. “I definitely need to see this.”

“Alright, I won’t stop you,” Harley responded, “I guess I’ll be on my wa-”

The cute girl was interrupted by the other cute girl reaching out and touching her arm softly.

“Before you go, might I get your number?”

Jade stared at her for a few seconds before squinting her eyes suspiciously.

“This is a competition of sorts between you and my brother, isn’t it?”

Aradia shrugged, not even considering denying her allegation. “Yes, but this way you can help me pay him back for whatever he made you do...”

There was a glint in her eye as she pulled out a pen and grabbed Aradia’s forearm, hastily writing what looked like her cell-phone number on it, then releasing her arm.

Before Aradia could even say thanks, Jade was already walking away.

Aradia stopped to consider how many numbers she had so far; Tavros, Equius, Feferi, and Jade, not counting Sollux who would be a definite maybe... That was four numbers so far, which was pretty good, but was it good enough? Aradia had to find out.

She walked toward the crowd with a skip, and as she got there, she saw them.

_John’s abs._

Sweet fucking Jesus.

 

“Like what you see?” said John, eyebrows wiggling crazily when he noticed his opponent.

Aradia bit her lip, thinking before she spoke.

“I’ve seen.... Better…”

John assumed the Superman pose, fists on his hips, glistening gloriously in the sun. “I’m comfortable with my body so it doesn’t faze me.”

Laughing, Aradia replied “So you should be.... So, how many numbers have you gotten so far?”

John chuckled. “Wow you’re really uncomfortable!” He flexed slightly before continuing. “Let’s see, Rose, Damara, Cronus...and I got a date lined up tonight. That’s gotta count for like three, right?”

“Hah,” she scoffed, flicking her hair back in a dramatic manner, internally flailing with joy, “I don’t mean to brag, but… You’re going to need to step up your game if you hope to win against me!”

“Okay fine,” said John. He seemed a little distracted and appeared to be staring at her. “Well, I guess I better whip out the body oil. Want to rub it on me?” he somehow pulled off the rare and coveted double-wink without making it look like a blink.

John, currently lacking the cute innocence he typically had, was making Aradia somewhat flustered, so she gave a small cough and said “Don’t think you can distract me from my goal, John Egbert. There are still more hours on the clock, more numbers to be gained…”

Before John could respond, Aradia decided to bring out the big guns, flashing, very obviously, the green, neatly written number on her arm.

“Recognise the handwriting?” she winked.

John clapped his hands to his face and let out the longest, most drawn out “No!” of his life. “Well, I mean, yes, I recognize it,” he muttered afterwards.

Aradia let out the most maniacal laughter, followed by wiggling her eyebrows. “See you later, John~”

John sagged to the floor as she sashayed away, victorious.

 

*********

Moments later and Aradia was outside the computer store she remembered Sollux used to work at. Stepping inside, she unfortunately could not see him anywhere, so she decided to hang around for a bit to see if he would soon show up, but eventually, as she was looking around, she felt a presence come up behind her.

“Well, hello there, gorgeous. You can call me Eridan, or you can call me tonight,” said a pompous voice. At first, Aradia thought it might have been Sollux putting on a ridiculous accent, but it was the lack of a lisp that made her think otherwise.

Turning around, she found herself uncomfortably close to what only could be described as a grade A hipster; probably-un-prescribed thick-rimmed glasses, black and blue striped pants, an expensive looking striped blue scarf, weird blue and purple shoes, and a shit-ton of jewellery.

Aradia forcibly pulled her attention away from the guy’s outfit and to his face. She had had to admit, he was decently attractive, but his whole demeanour screamed fuckboy. Nonetheless, this would definitely be an easy number; so much so that Aradia almost considered this cheating, but hey, she was in it to win.

“Sure thing, but I’m going to need your number first,” she purred, leaning in closer (which was not a good idea on her part as he reeked of Lynx™ Body Spray), handing him her notebook and pen. “I’m Aradia, by the way.”

His mouth gaped wide open as if he were genuinely really surprised that he scored a reciprocated flirt session so easily, but he regained himself and scribbled down his number eagerly on the paper.

Aradia grinned in response, taking the pen and notebook, flipping it closed, and putting them away.

“So, Eridan, I’m looking for someone called Sollux. Would you happen to know where he is?”

Eridan frowned, leaning back against a shelf. “Yeah, he’s here today. I’m wwillin’ to bet he’s in the staff-only room in the back... Wwhy are you lookin’ for him?”

“I can’t say, but it’s really important. Could you please take me to him?”

With her batting her eyes like that and her eyes filled with hope, Eridan couldn’t say no, so he took her to Sollux, who was watching the _Bee Movie_ on his tablet.

“Hey,” Eridan practically barked, “you’re meant to be wworkin’, not wwatchin’ dumb vvideos!”

Sollux shrugged, “Pthh... as if you work any more than I do,” he said, but he paused it anyway and spun his chair around to face Aradia and Eridan. His face lit up and his eyes widened behind the weird blue and red glasses he still seemed to wear when he saw Aradia.

“AA! What bringth you to thith neighbourhood?”

Aradia thought it cruel to just ask for Sollux’s right in front of Eridan right after only just gaining his number, so she turned to Eridan and politely asked “do you think you could give us a minute?”

Eridan huffed, but nodded and left the two of them alone.

Aradia straight away went in for a massive hug, nearly snapping Sollux, who resembled a twig compared to herself.

“I can’t believe you still work here! I mean, I was hoping you were, otherwise I obviously wouldn’t be here and-”

Sollux stopped her by trying to shoosh her but, due to his lisp, it sounded like a cute “thhhh”.

Aradia let out a small giggle and Sollux finally stepped out of her arms.

“So what are you doing here? I haven’t seen you for, what’s it been, a year? Thinth you went to college? I’m thuper thrilled, though, don’t get wrong.”

Aradia felt pretty bad then for only coming to see him after so long for a competition between her and John, so she thought that maybe it was best to say a bit of a white lie.

“I was in the neighbourhood and I was hoping to catch up with you, maybe get your number, and organise a date we could hang out and catch up,” she said, applauding herself for her smooth cover, pulling out her notebook and pen again, giving it to him, and praying to whatever deity might be there that he wouldn’t flip the pages and see all the other numbers. Thankfully, he did not, and he took and he gave it back, before writing his number down.

“Why not right now?” he asked with the cutest, most hopeful smile, “I’ll tell Eridan I’m gonna take the retht of the day off, I don’t give a fuck.”

Aradia frowned slightly. “I’m actually pretty busy today...”

“How about tonight?”

“What are you suggesting?”

Sollux moved in closer and grasped Aradia’s hands, rubbing small circles on them with his thumbs. A small chill went down her spine. This was...nice.

“Dinner-date, maybe?”

Aradia bit her lip, thinking... John did say he was taking someone out on a date tonight, too, so why couldn’t she?

Her mind flooded with guilt as she thought about John while holding hands with Sollux. Did this mean... She was crushing on John? Sure, he was cute, in more ways than one, and pretty funny, and totally her type... But, no. Their whole friendship was founded on silliness and dumb movies; how could that ever evolve into a romance? Besides, Sollux was also her type, and he was just as cute and funny, plus they had history.

Literally. They shared history in their last years of high school together.

“Uh... AA? Hello?”

Aradia snapped back into the present.

“Yeah! Sounds great! Where and when?”

“There’th a neat plathe called Vethtigial Empire. I could retherve a thpot and I’ll pick you up at thixth-thirty?”

Aradia nodded and smiled in response before getting out her phone, adding Sollux as a contact, and sending him her address.

“See you then! I should probably get going now... Haha.”

“Aw, alright. Thee you later, AA.”

“See ya later, nerd.”

With that, Aradia left, not looking Eridan in the eye as she did as such. When she left, instead of going out and getting more numbers she found herself catching a bus home and then laying on the couch in silence, regaining the energy that today had taken from her.

When 6:30 came around, Aradia was in a beautiful red and black dress with her hair in a low pony-tail that reached her waist. She hadn’t left her house since she came back from seeing Sollux, nor had she tried to get any more numbers. She wasn’t in the mood and she already had 6 numbers, whereas the last she heard from John he only had 3, and she didn’t really expect him to get many more as he was the kind to invest a lot of time into one person instead of a lot of people anyway. It was a trait that she admired about him, but even if he did surprise her by winning, Aradia found herself not caring anymore.

The game was no longer fun anymore.

Aradia heard two distinct knocks at the door, and that was all she needed to know that Sollux was here to pick her up.

“What’th thhakin’ bacon?” he said, wiggling his eyebrows fiercely.

 

And thus their date began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2ni:  
> If it was only this easy to get numbers damn aradia’s gotta be a goddess (PUN bc she literally is). Also I’m so sorry for all the procrastination that lead to this late update, I would promise that this never happens again, but you know me. Oh, wait. You don’t; I’m just a bunch of words you read on the internet, echoing in your head, never to be remembered again.  
> Remember to follow me at [homestfuck](www.homestfuck.tumblr.com), and you can send requests if you want as my thirst for followers and requests show no bounds.  
> All puns in this chapter belong to me and me only (*TM symbol*) /especially/ the title.
> 
> Mitspeiler:  
> Relationships based on silliness and dumb movies can totally work fyi, follow your dreams, kids.  
> I been real busy doing my own thing but the blame for the lateness of this chapter all squarely on the shoulders of the other person who as writing this fic, a mere sad meme of a person. (who is in good company, being a sad meme myself)  
> [ Anyway go buy my book](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M25P3Y4) (yeah fanfics have ads now it’s the 21st century)


	5. The Breathalyzer Tests Positive for Ram

In his mind, John was spinning around in a circle and screaming.  He was going to fucking _lose_ , and be forever known as the undateable, ugly friend.  To be entirely honest he didn’t really want to date anyone at this point in his life, or more accurately to date someone that he was already close with, knew he had a good rapport with, could just hang out and watch _amazing_ movies and eat hamburgers with.  Too bad Aradia was a lesbian actually, because she would totally be his ideal datemate.  

Well who knows, he thought, maybe this date with Roxy would turn out to be more than just a one-night deal.

John was back home in his apartment he shared with Dave, huddling under a blanket because his shirtless abs were cold.  He briefly considered asking Dave for his number, but that probably wouldn’t fly; neither for Aradia’s competitive mind nor Dave’s fragile hyper-masculine heterosexual persona would allow for it.  Besides, he’d been out of town for a couple days.

A thought occurred.  John picked up his cell phone and called Dave.  There was some kind of ruckus in the background when Dave picked up.  “Yo John I’m kind of in the middle of something so if you could just call me back—”

“Yeah, but this is more important!” John shouted.

Dave didn’t snort or laugh but the sound became kinda staticky, as it often does when Dave laughs internally so hard that it causes psychic disruptions.  “I kinda doubt that actually, I’m literally on a floating continent about to cause a global extinction event.”

John snorted.  “Shut the fuck up you nerd, and by shut the fuck up I mean keep talking but in a way that helps me personally.  See, I need…” he paused dramatically, _“dating advice!”_

“Shit, that is more important,” said Dave.  “Hold on just gimme like five seconds and I’ll get right back to you.”  There was a loud metallic banging on his end for a few seconds, and a couple of swear words, and then Dave was back.  John told him all about the competition.  Dave listened patiently, only occasionally pausing to continue his metallic banging and swearing.  What the hell was this wannabe coolkid up to, John thought, fixing an old boiler maybe?

“Okay this is easily fixed,” said Dave.  “You won’t even have to do anything except get ready for your date.”  His voice muffled, but John could still hear it, as if Dave were just shouting over his shoulder.  “Yo Callie, upload my little black book onto John’s PDA!”

John blinked.  The PDA screen glowed a bright golden yellow for a few seconds and then the machine vibrated for a full five minutes, as if John had turned it off for a day and turned it back on, receiving every notification he should’ve gotten in the intervening time all at once.

Checking the device, he saw that his Pesterchum app had remotely installed around a hundred girls’ names onto his contacts, each with an accompanying cute selfie.  There were some that he recognized, and some that he did not.  Many of them appeared to be foreign.  He recalled that Dave’s rap career had picked up in Eastern Europe over the summer.  That was truly a wild tale for another time, he thought, grinning at the assorted numbers, and surely the most interesting thing that could ever happen to Dave.

“Now obviously just downloading a database of fine honeys is not gonna fly in this kind of competition since they were literally handed to you on a silver platter and you didn’t have to earn them like what I did,” said Dave.  The mechanical banging was getting louder, and something that sounded like an explosion went off in the distance.  “Shit.”

On the other side of the world, Dave saw city hall get blown up by a ravaging horde of Caliborn’s sentry robots.  “Are you okay Dave?” John asked, concerned.

Dave picked up a submachine gun and started shooting into the mass of screaming metal.  “Yeah sure thing John, just pick a couple girls and text them real quick to see if they’re interested until you get enough numbers to win, then go enjoy your date.”  Dave hung up.

Up above Calliope, the magical grey-skinned android they’d brought to life last night, fired twin beams of red light from the gems in her cheeks, incinerating the robots.  “Avengers!” he said, raising his shield, “ASSEMBLE!”

*********

John fiddled around on the phone for a little while as he laid out his clothes for the evening.  He picked out a handful of girls he thought were cute and messaged them.  He had a little roleplay with a cute, kittenish girl.

AC: :33< *the curious kitten rubs her head against the intrepid hare’s flank*

EB: *the rabbit decides not to flee, and nuzzles the kitten’s neck* ;P

AC: :33< *pounce de leon the terrible smirks to herself and shatters the rabbit’s back with a mighty blow of her paw, tearing it open with her shiny, glistening teeth to suck his spinal fluid* :33

EB: …

EB: well that was fun.

EB: wanna give me your real phone number so I can give you a call sometime?

AC: :33< *purrs, considering* I really prefer to text!

EB: well yes but maybe I can take you out to the zoo sometime and we can look at the tigers together?

AC: :33< there’s an idea!  I fucking love big cats!

His task accomplished, John moved on.  Some skater chick named Latula convinced him to send her pictures of his abs (in exchange for pictures of her own).

EB: wow those are pretty sick abs.

EB: someone should call the doctor, because that’s how sick they are.

LP: th4nks you’r3 not too b4d yours3lf br4h!  you work out?

EB: a bit yeah but i also used to do some work as a handy man’s assistant, mostly carrying around sledgehammers and lead pipes and shit.

LP: pr3tty sw33t yo.  so wh4t, you dtf?

EB: …

LP: wh4t? th1s 1s on3 of thos3 hook up apps 1nn1t?

EB: how about you buy me dinner first omfg

In a bit of a cold sweat, John managed to pin down the girl’s number. Feeling just slightly unsafe, John changed before trying anything again.  He’d almost gone with a full suit but decided not to be too formal.  Navy slacks, a dark blue button down shirt and black leather shoes were his outfit for tonight.  It had been a while since he wore the shoes, he saw, and they were a bit dusty, so he set about polishing them.  To amuse himself he picked out another girl at random and started texting her too.

EB: hey there.

EB: sorry to bother you my friend put a bunch of contacts on my phone and im bored.

uu: oh dear.

uu: er, sorry love, bUt yoU’re not sUpposed to have this contact on yoUr phone.

EB: thats too bad you seem interesting.

uu: that’s very kind of yoU to say!

EB: im serious, lets exchange selfies.

uu: great scott, are you hUman flirting with me?   i am literally one day old!

EB: ahh, you like role playing too!  what game is this?

uu: the game is called “i’m an android created to be the perfect body of a malevolent ai, bUt i was broUght to life by a magic ring and became sentient before he coUld Upload his vile personality” U_U

EB: wow that sounds really intense!

EB: but what was that about a perfect body? ;P

uu: <blUshes a shade of green i heretofore had no knowledge of being able to turn!>  *sir!* i am frankly a little offended and *more* than a little flUstered!  i-if you knew what i looked like you would doUbtless change your tUne.

EB: how about a selfie then, so I can judge for myself?

He blinked and did a double-take when he received the picture.  The girl was dressed in a green suit that showed off a hint of a curvy figure, but her face was all grey, with sharp teeth protruding over her lower lips, and messy silver hair.  There were green swirls on her cheeks and her scleras were yellow.

EB: that is really fantastic cosplay!

uu: i’m sorry *what*?

EB: you look fantastic!  and i think youre pretty!

uu: <melts into a pUddle of liquid metal goo> yoU are a godless cad john egbert, i swear, the caliborn sentries won’t have to touch me, i’ll have died of the vapors dUe to your shameless flirting ^u^

EB: can I get your cell phone number and call you some time? I bet your voice is as pretty as your face ;)

uu: jUst a moment dear, i don’t have a mobile yet.

uu: excellent, i’ve just acqUired service!  here’s my nUmber:

John chuckled to himself as he saved the number and finished polishing his shoes.  Now this was a good candidate for a girlfriend, weird roleplaying aside.  Although, it did seem kinda duplicitous to be looking in so many directions when he already had a date lined up.  He’d had a crush on Roxy when they were children and in truth it never really left him; the John of only two years ago would’ve been jumping for joy and dancing in the streets.  Now, the closer the actual date seemed, the more fragile it seemed to become, like a bubble blown onto the snow, left until it becomes sheer crystal and shatters.  He hadn’t spoken with her in years; did he like Roxy, or just the idea of Roxy?  Was he really thinking these things, or was he just looking for an excuse not to go, out of fear of finally attaining something he’d held onto for so long?

Almost as if in response to his troubled train of thought, John was struck by a moment of intense nervousness as he looked at himself in the mirror.  He looked great; his appearance had nothing to do with the mild panic.  Instead he just felt incredibly foolish.  He’d only really dated a couple of times in the past and nothing terribly serious.  John really wished someone were here to encourage him.  With the absence of Dave, he’d have preferred Aradia.  She was his best female friend and a source of pure light and warmth.  Damn, he thought, if only he could date her—

Shit.  John slapped himself, blushing into the mirror.  He’d just fallen for a lesbian.

*********

Vestigial Empire was a fusion restaurant decorated with cyclopean memorabilia from long forgotten civilizations and brass plaques depicting lines of poetry that instilled the reader with knowledge of the fragility of man.  John and Roxy were seated under “all around that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / the lone and level sands stretch far away”.

Roxy, leaning against the table with an appraising look in her catlike eyes, was dressed in a splendid purple dress, tastefully sparkly, with dark elbow-length gloves.  Her hair curled up at the ends so she looked like a very young Marilyn Monroe.  He’d ordered some sparkling wine for the table.  Roxy winked a big pink eye at him.  “I really shouldn’t drink, but since you’re paying, eh?” she said, and downed her glass in one gulp, leaving behind a smudge of dark lipstick.

“Haha, yes,” said John, rubbing the back of his head a bit.  “We’re adults, drinking liquor together.”  He took a sip of his own wine.  It tasted like fruit soda, if fruit soda hated him.  “Delicious,” he croaked, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks.

Roxy giggled.  “Can’t hold your liquor, can you?  Already turning red,” she accused, pouring herself a second glass.

“That’s absolutely it,” said John.  A moment later, as Roxy tried to keep herself from chuckling at him, a gear crunched in his head.  “Is that more embarrassing to admit to than being shy?”

She snorted, arching a perfect eyebrow.  “Yes.  I try not to judge people but yes.”  They both had a little giggle.  John finished his glass and Roxy finished her third.  The next twenty minutes were spent in pleasant banter.  John felt his nerves steadying themselves as he got used to the beautiful girl’s company again.  Clearly all his earlier worry had just been the wimpier aspects of his personality trying to derail him.  It was going fucking _fine_.

The appetizer arrived; an order of zesty Italian eggrolls.  “Oh shit I love these,” said Roxy, snatching one up and eating half in one bite.  “I could eat like six plates myself,” she said around a mouthful of food, downing it with another glass of wine.

John smiled.  “Yeah they’re pretty great.  I buy the frozen ones and just pig out sometimes.”

“You’re my kinda man!” Roxy declared, her inside voice growing in volume as she did a vast sweeping gesture.  He noticed that her gloves were fingerless; very practical.

Roxy slammed back another glass of wine.  “God I hope the food shows up soon, I don’t wanna be drunk through dinner,” she said, looking around the restaurant with hooded eyes.

John quirked his eyebrow.  “Looking for someone?” he said with a slight smile.

Roxy snorted.  “Hey Johnny, ever fall for a gay kid?”

He blinked two or three times.   _That_ was unexpected.  “Um, yeah,” he admitted with a deep sigh.

“Me fuckin’ too,” she muttered.  “Don’t get me wrong, I like you!” she added with a defensive wave of her hands, “you’re really hot and super nice you’re buying me food, all of which are fantastic qualities, but I gotta be upfront that this date is happening under a level of emotional baggage on my part!”  She poured the last bit of wine from the bottle into her glass and sipped it tenderly.   _"Garçon!”_ she cried sweetly over her shoulder, “mas vino, por fa _vor!”_

A new glass of wine appeared, along with the main courses.  John had a rack of boar ribs marinated in honey and Mesopotamian beer, while Roxy had the signature _chow mein a la marinara._  “Tomato sauce is some kind of divine elixir,” she said, chowing down.  “I tracked down the original recipe for marinara sauce in Antonio Latini’s cookbook from the fuckin’ 17th century so I could have some authentic Italian and it took me to the fuckin’ moon.  Better than booze.”

Her words were slurring now, though she seemed more or less completely lucid.  John and Roxy talked about cooking throughout their meal; how John learned to bake from his father but couldn’t fry an egg, while Roxy taught herself to cook since her and Rose’s mother was often too busy or too drunk to tend to their foodly needs.   “I can make literally any kind of pasta, but nothing else,” she said, finishing the second bottle of wine.  “Yoo _hoo,_ Gar _çon!_  I want some of this rare ancient Greek honey _be-er!”_

John looked at the menu and found what she was talking about; the King Midas vintage was as expensive as the entire rest of the meal.  “I don’t really think that’ll be a good idea,” said John.

“I’ll share!” Roxy declared, leaning across the table and setting her hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t actually really like alcohol that much,” John whispered, looking around from side to side.

“Aww,” Roxy cooed, stroking his collarbone with the tip of her finger, sending a shiver down John’s spine.  “How about you buy that for me,” she whispered, “and I _rock your fuckin’ world tonight,_ you fuckin’ _stud?_  ‘Betwixt the shits’ like.”  She giggled to herself.  “Sheets I mean, OMF.”

John was busily trying not to choke.  “I fucking exposed myself to the entire campus earlier I shouldn’t be this nervous,” he muttered.

“What was that?” Roxy asked, sitting back down, the sultry draining out of her like water through a sieve, leaving her safe, jocular normal self behind.

“In the interest of full disclosure I am also still currently crushing on a gay person,” John blurted out.  The entire dining area went quiet at just that moment and stared over at him, as the waiter brought Roxy’s King Midas beer.

Roxy cracked the bottle and chugged half of it in one gulp.  “God _damn_ Egbert, way to cause a fuckin’ scene,” she drawled, a bit too loudly.  From the expression on her face, she looked like she might fall asleep soon.  There would be no worlds rocked betwixt the sheets for her tonight, thought John, even if he’d felt comfortable sleeping with a drunk girl.  Which he absolutely didn’t.

“We’re having a competition,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, “we’re racing to see who can collect the most phone numbers in a day.”

Roxy stared at him as if he were insane, and then started cackling.  Pounding her fist on the table to punctuate her laughter, she said, “OMFG John, you won’t fuckin’ believe it but me and _my_ gay crush are having the same competition!  He told me he had a fuckin’ date tonight and it really messed me up.  I think I’m probably gonna lose.”  By the end of this, her mirth had subsided, and her voice became wobbly.  John thought she was going to cry, but she started coughing instead.

“Can I get some water for my date here, garcon?” he asked a passing waiter, just as Roxy emptied the contents of her stomach onto John’s shiny black shoes.  He sighed.

“Real sorry Johnny,” she mumbled, looking like a kicked puppy.

“Let’s get you home,” he suggested.  He told the waiter to get him the bill and a doggy bag instead of water and left a fifty on the table, standing up to help Roxy to her feet.

“Such a gentleman,” she said, leaning heavily against him, and absently, almost automatically groping his chest.  “Wow you’re fuckin’ ripped,” she muttered.  Suddenly, Roxy’s eyes widened.  She had seen something awful across the restaurant, a sight that would haunt her to the end of her days.

There was Jake English, sitting at a booth, with his arms wrapped around their mutual friends Dirk and Jane.  They were clinging to him like barnacles and taking turns kissing his lips.  He caught sight of her watching, and gave Roxy the double-pistols and a wink.

“Motherfucker’s _bi,”_ she hissed, raising her middle finger.  “How dare he lead me on like that!?  Guess what Johnny, your world’s getting rocked anyway!  C’mere,” and with that she stood as straight as possible, flipped John to face her straight on, and laid a heavy, sloppy kiss on his mouth.

The first thing that struck him, admittedly, was the taste of alcohol and bile.  John bemoaned the fact that two pretty girls had kissed him today, and both of those kisses had been subpar as far as kisses went.  And here was the girl of his dreams (or who had only _left_ his dreams in the not too distant past) hanging on his lips.  But he couldn’t enjoy their fullness, their softness, or the warmth of Roxy’s body against his, because somehow, unbeknownst to him, Aradia and her date had been sitting within spitting distance this entire time.  She was staring at him, a fork raised to her open mouth, eyes wide in shock.

When Roxy let him go, John just hooked his arm through hers and said, “let’s get you home,” once more, just loud enough so she would understand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mitspeiler: I watched _Avengers: Age of Ultron_ , and envisioned a crossover with Homestuck, starring Calliope as The Vision and Caliborn as Ultron. However I am pretty sure I’d never get it off the ground at this point, since I have such a backlog of projects, so I decided to throw it in here as a cameo. Of course, John isn’t gonna fucking lose this competition, so I basically gave him all the honeys. All of them.  
> I often see people bemoaning the fact that authors tend to focus on Roxy’s alcoholism for the sake of humor, ignoring the better part of her character for cheap laughs. I try not to do this very often, but I admit I like a good cheap laugh so :P Don’t think I hate Roxy though, I am well aware of the many nuances of her character and I can write her to her full potential when I want to. Take a look at my novel-length story _[Breath Waker](http://archiveofourown.org/works/865118/chapters/1659612)_ if you want an example. In it, Roxy is in the later stages of recovery, and occasionally indulges in her vices, but for the most part she is sober and as wonderful as I can make her.  
>  Also, I crammed a lot of weird headcanons into this one. Like Latula having abs, or Latula being the type to use hookup apps (when single, obviously), and Roxy’s love of italian food. All of these are shit I made up, yet will believe until disproven.  
> Vestigial Empire is a relic from an original story that I never got to writing. I couldn’t decide whether the characters should frequent an Italian restaurant or a Chinese one, so I made it a whacky fusion place based on ancient or extinct civilizations. I find this hilarious for reasons that I can’t fucking explain, sorry.
> 
> 2ni: Hahahaha John thinks Dave is straight (and also not an Avenger)


	6. Sad Little Lamb

Aradia’s date had, needless to say, not been the best.

Before she even saw John and that... that... infuriatingly attractive girl, the date had been going at an agonizingly slow pace.  The little conversation to be had consisted of Sollux complaining about his life and his oh-so-many problems, 99% of which were Eridan.  At least he wasn’t going on about bees like he used to all the time.  

The thing that tipped the scale, changing the status of the date from 0kay to 2uckish was when their food finally arrived.  Sollux, bony stick that he was, had ordered a cob salad.  Aradia, who knew who she was and what she wanted in life, had decided to try something new and ordered tafelspitz, some kind of european beef dish with horseradish.  When the waiter brought it over and laid down Aradia’s platter Sollux said, with the most condescending tone he could muster (which was quite condescending indeed), “Are you _really_ going to eat all of that?” Aradia couldn’t even reply to because he immediately went on to talk about something else, presumably off-topic and some kind of complaint, and from then on Aradia just stopped listening.  She did manage to glare over her beef at him, not that he noticed.

She then picked up her fork and began eating because there was food in front of her, she was hungry, and also because since she wasn’t listening to Sollux. Finally she needed something else to distract her from a certain nicely-built, Nic Cage-obsessed individual that kept entering her thoughts. She took a bite and considered the taste, and then another, which she chewed somewhat angrily.  She had come to the conclusion that this food, this supposedly great restaurant meal, wasn’t even good.  It was in fact, bad on a Dickensian level.  The chef, she felt, was some kind of Victorian era child abuser who couldn’t even season beef, the most flavorful of domestic meats, except for far too much horseradish.  Who the hell liked that much horseradish? Certainly not Aradia.  She disliked horses in general, and their radishes, she decided, were completely over-represented in this meal.  At that point, the scale tipped farther than she thought it could possibly tip from suckish to awful. It was like the scale did a fucking cartwheel off her desk and into a traschan.  Nonetheless, she continued eating; the act of mechanically chewing her plate of mediocrity a balm on her soul.

As Sollux continued to talk (and eat, and talk _while eating like a savage_ ), Aradia was thinking about how even more talkative and obnoxious Sollux was currently being, and remembered from high school that this really only happened when he ate honey. Before she could interrupt his monologue and ask him if he’d been getting into his dad’s hives again like a horrible little heterochromatic badger, her eyes locked onto someone who looked like John, except finely-dressed. After a moment she realized that it was, in fact, John. Except finely-dressed. He was with an unrecognizable, but very attractive, blonde girl in front of the exit and her eyes widened as they leaned in closer and sensually smooched.  Aradia gasped around her mouthful of all-too-bitter and damn near unseasoned beef; this was some kind of movie-star kiss, some kind of climactic, “we’re gonna be happy forever and have twenty babies” kiss. While she was thinking that, John linked his arm through the blonde’s and they left the restaurant, as he whispered something in her ear.

Aradia short-circuited and dropped the fork she had been holding onto her plate with a loud CLANK.

“-and thecondly,” Sollux said, somewhat more angrily than before, snapping Aradia back to the present, “he even tried to convinthe me that, not only that you were _‘highly thuggethtivve’,_ ” he imitated Eridan’s voice surprisingly well, as if he spent far too long practicing the boy’s accent, “but that _you_ asked for _hith_ number! Ath if I would believe that! Uh... Earth to AA? Hello? What’th with you? You’ve been acting weird and kinda rude ath fuck thith WHOLE evening!”

Aradia’s eye twitched.  If she thought the scale on the date so far had already been tipped to awful, this blew the scale to smithereens and what was left of it landed in the disaster-zone.  Aradia snapped.

“ _I’ve_ been acting ‘weird and kinda rude’?! Sollux, this whole time you’ve been complaining about Eridan! It’s like you’ve got some weird hate-crush on him or something!!!”

“AA, that’th ridiculouth,” he said, his tone switching to infuriatingly reasonable, “I’m not even gay.”

“That’th not…” she shook the lisp out of her voice with a tos of her head, “That’s not the point,” Aradia slumped down and made a conscious choice to lower her voice because there were people nearby giving them side-eyed looks, “This whole night has been a one sided, negative conversation.”

“Okay, okay, thorry, then! What can I do to make up for it?”  His eyes looked genuinely apologetic.

Aradia sighed.  “I don’t know, just... I’m not feeling this. I think I should go.”

“...Tho you’re thaying we thould thplit?” Sollux frowned, still trying to work in his two-theme with the talk of bifurcation.

“Well, we weren’t even officially going out in the first place, but I guess if you want to think of it that way. Yeah.”  She awkwardly rubbed her arm near the shoulder, looking down at her plate instead of her date.

She pulled out some money from her purse and placed it on the table next to her unfinished meal. She stood up and began to walk away, but Sollux reached out his hand and lightly grabbed her wrist.

“AA... I thaid I wath thorry. Don’t go... Bethides, you need me to drop you back home.”

Aradia gave a sad smile and told him she’d catch a bus.

As luck would have it, it began raining as soon as she stepped through the door; not a light drizzle but a sudden, unexpected downpour of symbolic proportions.  Glancing down the street, she saw that she _just_ missed the last bus by a matter of seconds as it sped off into the city, its lights illuminating the rain like a swarm of golden bees. She squinted to look at the bus schedule stapled to a nearby telephone pole.  The next one wouldn’t come for another 41.3 minutes.  Joy.

A little over an hour later she found herself home, cold, wet, and miserable.  She wrung out her heavy hair like a towel and ran herself a hot bath.

She emerged comfortably warm but cold inside, and changed into her Nightmare Before Christmas pyjamas. She only broke those out when she knew it would be a long, sleepless night.  Her hunger soon caught up with her so she went to her freezer and pulled out a large, barely started on, tub of cookies and cream ice-cream (the flavor of despair, she thought, spooning it into her mouth).

She spent the rest of the night (and early hours of the morning) watching her Indiana Jones DVD box set under some blankets with the ice-cream tub, long since melted to pudding from time and her overly high body-heat (she thought she might be a little bit feverish, and wondered if that was just because she was upset or if she might be catching a cold), and now nearly empty, sobbing about how John had probably slept with that girl by now, and how he’s not the kind to just sleep around with anyone, so it was probably going to be something serious between the two of them, and GOD DAMN IT she was gorgeous.

“I’m so pathetic... I didn’t think I was the kind to cry over a dumb boy,” Aradia sobbed, throwing the empty tub onto the floor, before falling asleep with ice-cream, tears, and snot marring her face.  She didn’t even get through _The Last Crusade,_ a thing she had never failed to do.

When she woke up, she hoped that all would be better, but that was not the case; she was, unfortunately, a girl of extremes and would either be really happy, or dead inside.

She received a few calls and text messages, and idly assumed that they were mainly from Sollux and John, but Aradia fell on such a low that she couldn’t bring herself to even pick up the phone, let alone read them and answer. She was too ashamed of the mess she had become, and was afraid they would sense her hurt through text and be even more of a nuisance. Eventually her phone battery died, as she’d failed to plug it in last night.  She no longer had to hear the phone’s incessant beeping and occasional ringtones, these unnecessary reminders of her failure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2ni: I don’t even ship Erisol ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Also wow this MAY seem like a kinda unhealthy relationship if Aradia is literally falling into a depression because of a crush, buuut this is fiction and an exaggerated romantic fanfic, so it’s all good. No I do not endorse this lmao.  
> mitspeiler: Aradia has a variety of different pyjamas for different occassions, most of which are horror themed. She does however, have a single pair of MLP pyjamas that she has never worn. Damara gave them to her, with a note that said “when the time comes you will know what to do”. They have sat at the bottom of her underwear drawer for two years now, and she still has no idea why.  
> And really she’s more just beating herself up over how shitty the evening was, on top of the uncomfortable self-realization that she’s hot for John. Overreaction perhaps, but it’s not the relationship that’s unhealthy.  
> Ayyyy and fuck Erisol ya feel


	7. Nerdfist

John made Roxy some ramen because while he may have talked a big game about cooking, it didn’t mean there was actually any food in his apartment aside from dehydrated noodles and apple juice.  Fortunately, he didn’t think that she would be able to handle anything too rich or flavorful.

“Awww yeah John,” she said from the couch where he had left her tightly bundled like a burrito, “this is where the magic happens innit?”  She kicked her leg free and kicked one of her shoes up to the ceiling, where it hung from the ceiling fan as if she had intended to do that all along.  “John.  Johnny.  You’re supposed to say ‘this is where the magic happens’, like on MTV Cribs.”

“This is my couch, not my bedroom,” he said reasonably as he brought out the steaming bowl of chicken flavored soup.  He idly wondered if artificial chicken flavoring came from artificial chickens.

Roxy looked around in confusion, as if realizing for the first time that she was, in fact, on a couch and not in bed.  “Aww shit,” she said, “looks like I’m not actually getting laid tonight.”

“Yeah, maybe some other time,” said John, sitting down across from her in Dave’s chair.  “You know, when you aren’t super drunk... and ill….. and we’re both not in love with other people.”

Roxy giggled.  “It’s a date.”

John scooped out some soup and Roxy opened her mouth wide.  “Ah yiss, fake asian food.  Fasian,” said Roxy.  She then proceeded to gossip about her friends between bites as John fed her.

“One time Jake took us all hunting and he shot a partridge out of the sky.  He was dual wielding fucking taurus shotgun revolvers like a fuckin action movie clod, but he made the shot by some miracle.  I knew he’d gotten lucky and that there was no way he should’ve been able to do that, and that he was a terrible hunter and really damn lame as well, but that’s when I realized I had to have his stupid gay ass.”  She shared a number of such stories over the next half hour, and when the ramen was gone, she closed her eyes and loudly declared that she was going to sleep.

John sighed and tromped up to his bedroom, flopping down on his bed, still in his clothes.  He checked pesterchum and saw a number of naughty messages from the menagerie of ladies that Dave had set him up with.  He supposed that he’d won, but it absolutely didn’t feel that way.  He sent off a text message to Aradia.  “I got about sixteen phone numbers, I think.  How about you?”

He didn’t think she’d answer right away, being busy with...that boy from the restaurant so he had no real compunctions with going to sleep before he got a response.

*********

The next morning, Roxy was whimpering downstairs, hungover, and John was also nursing a headache of the “I stayed up too late” variety.  He went downstairs and made them both some theraflu tea, the only medication that he had in his pantry.  At least it had painkillers in it.

“Hiii Johnny,” said Roxy with a wave as he brought in the steaming mugs.  “You really rocked my world last night.  When we made love.  Good shit.”

“Uhhhh,” said John, handing her a cup.  “That is not a thing we did.  I’m just not that kind of guy!”

“You’re not gay are ya?” she asked, chugging the tea as if it were refreshingly cool.  “I remember something about gay stuff coming up last night.  Wait no, you’re straight but in love with a gay person.”

“Yeah,” said John, sipping her tea.  It burned his tongue.  “Ow.  Wait, no.  Aradia was on a date with a boy last night, I saw her in the restaurant.”

Roxy gasped, clutching her te to her chest. “Oh the drama!  Such drams are going on here, you have no clue!  Except you do because you’re at the center of it!”

“What’s it called when you like both genders anyway?” asked John, embarrassed at being the source of the dramas.

“I guess she’s one of them bipans, like what I am,” Roxy said with a nod, slamming back her tea like it was a shot of nasty-ass whiskey.  “More please,” she said with a big smile, holding out her mug and giving it a wiggle.

“Bi..pan…” said John, mentally applying -sexual to each of those words.  That sounded kinda right.  He felt his cheeks reddening.  There it was again, the stupid thought that he and Aradia might be able to be together.  He scurried into the kitchen and made another tea.

John used this opportunity to check his phone.  She hadn’t answered.  He sent another text.  Actually, he sent a string of texts, each of which contained a single yet separate main idea, the millennial equivalent of a paragraph, in which he tried to cheer her up (if she was feeling down about losing) and sorta subversively see if Aradia could hang out with him ASAP, offering to buy her a consolation diner.  He almost added a winky face, but that was coming on way too strong; John Egbert was no harlot.

Someone rang the doorbell.  They kept ringing the doorbell.  John ran back into the sitting room, handed Roxy her theraflu, and ran to the door, still angrily dinging and donging in his direction.

He practically slammed it open, hoping against hope that Aradia would be there.

John wasn’t quite disappointed, more completely and utterly surprised.  This had come entirely out of left field.

Standing in front of him was the pretty cosplayer from yesterday.  “Hullo,” she said cheerfully, her voice melodious and accented, “we spoke together yesterday and I think we had, what’s it called, excellent chemistry?” she batted her eyelashes like a person who had never batted her eyelashes before.

“Oh, uh, hi,”  John muttered, heat rising in his face.  “I...really didn’t expect to meet you so soon.  Weren’t you in Europe, partying with Dave or something?”

Calliope forced a giggle, still batting her eyelashes.  John thought they might fly off if they weren’t natural.  “Well yes, but that whole ugly business has been sorted out,  May I come in?”

John was about to protest as politely as he could to avoid her getting an eyeful of the hungover blonde bombshell on his couch and get the wrong idea, when she pushed past him and saw for herself.

“Oh goodness me,” said Calliope, “who is your friend?”

“Wowza,” breathed Roxy.  “John you are a lil’ pimp!  Rolal is proud of you, this is what’s-her-name?”

“No, this is Calliope.  I met her yesterday.”  The girl gave an embarrassed bow.

“Wow, you only just met yesterday!?  You really are a pimp, I am jelly!” Roxy laughed.

“I would like to think we bonded,” said Calliope, face turning green.  Wait, green?

“Come here and tell me all about it,” said Roxy, patting the spot next to her.  She had an odd look on her face.  It was like the look she’d given John the night before when she was sure they were going to bang.  “Johnny, can you go and get us some more tea?”

“I don’t think she’s hung over,” John reasoned.  Calliope walked over to the couch and plopped down.

“Johnny you owe me,” Roxy said with an exaggerated wink.  “Dos tes, por favor.”  Turning to Calliope, she said, “Wow, your hair is so pretty.”  She brushed a silvery strand out of the inexplicably green-blushing girl’s face.

John sighed and went back into the kitchen, only to see that he had no more theraflu.  He told the girls that he was slipping out to go food shopping, and asked if they’d like to come along, but they were so lost in each other’s eyes by this point that they didn’t notice him asking.

He went out and bought a number of necessities, as well as splurging on some spiced black tea that he remembered Aradia recommending him.  “I’ve got it bad,” he said, staring at the teabox.  You can crush on a girl and be relatively unchanged, but true love turns you from a pure red-blooded American coffee drinker to the kind of person that enjoys expensive tea.

When he got home, the girls were having a very heated makeout session on the couch.

John growled, and not in a sexy way.  He went into the kitchen and got to work on fixing himself a late breakfast, fastening his favorite apron.  He was not offering them anything.

The bell rang again when he was nearly done.  “Aradia?” he thought aloud.  Checking his phone, he saw no responses from her.

John stalked up to the door, tired, irritated, hoping to see his dear friend so he could tell her how he felt.  He hoped she was there.  If not, he’d go over to her place as soon as humanly possible.  Well, as soon as he could after chasing off the girls.

“Hey,” said John, opening the door.  A fist slammed into his face.

John had gotten boxing lessons from his dad, paragon of manliness that he was, and knew how to roll with a punch.  His assailant however, didn’t even know how to make a fist, and as a result, he probably hurt his hand more than he hurt John.

“I’m calling the police,” said John, shutting the door.

A foot jammed it open.  The stranger swore and shoved his way into the house.  “You broke her heart, you bitch!” he spat.

John looked at him.  The stranger was a spindly fellow with patchy hair and heterochromia.  He recognized him as Aradia’s date.  “Um, no, see, she was dating you, which is what a person does with a person that they like, not something they do when heartbroken.  I can see how you’d be confused.”

Sollux wasn’t looking at him anymore, but instead staring at Roxy and Calliope, still on the couch, still making out,  “So you were planning on adding her to your love cave huh you lady’s man piece of shit?”

“I still don’t understand you,” said John, who was literally about to dial 911 before Sollux slapped the phone out of his hand.

“Listen up you manwhore because I’m only gonna say this once; when we saw you at the restaurant yesterday, Aradia started to freak out.  I didn’t realize until it was too late because I’m almost, but not quite, as big a of a loser as you are.”  He growled, “and now she isn’t answering her phone!  I went by her place and I know she’s in there, but she just won’t come out!  The only logical conclusion is that you did something to her and now I’m gonna take it out of your hide.”

Sollux put up his fists.  “Come on, square up assclown.”

John decked him in the nose.  As Sollux went down, John had the stupidest, widest grin on his face.  “So she really is a bipan!” he shouted, jumping over the prone nerd and running out into the street.

 

 

 

 

> Notes:
> 
> mitty: this chapter was really long in the outline but it’s super short here, probably because the outline was so detailed.  I did have to trim it down because in the outline John gets a certain fact hammered into him before he finally makes a decision, but he’s not that dense.  A bit ignorant about certain real world issues yeah, but he’s no idiot.
> 
> Also have some sweet sweet Calroxy.  What the hell is their ship name?
> 
> Also also this fic is kinda sorta tied into [this Avengers mashup fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4711073) I wrote a couple months ago.  You should read it.
> 
> **  
> 2ni: **speaking of self-promos, what a fantastic time to mention that I have changed my tumblr url, so feel free to follow me at skeletonsofpuns.tumblr.com, I sure as HELL wont complain ;)** ******


	8. Sheepish

Especially in comparison to last night, Aradia wasn’t feeling too bad, which was a pleasant surprise. She had just come out of another shower – which was a definite necessity due to how much of a mess she was as a consequence of her night of self-pity party – and was now sitting on the floor of her bathroom, drenched with one towel wrapped around her hair and another lazily draped over her shoulders, playing mindless games on her phone.

As she was incessantly tapping at her phone, almost at the reach of a new high score, a loud knock at the door was heard causing a momentary distraction ergo causing her to lose  _ *just* _ before her well-earned achievement and high score-beating.

Aradia cursed and decided to not answer the door, instead starting a new game; both out of spite for the person at the door and also because she wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone. Maybe this time she’d get the high score and her life would be slightly more fulfilled.

However, the person at the door knocked again, this time louder. This triggered a thought in Aradia that perhaps the person knocking was the delivery guy. It certainly wasn’t out of the question as she had ordered a skull made out of rose quartz (that she was extremely excited to get, to say the least) a few weeks ago. If this was the case and she let the delivery person just leave it would mean she would have to go through the trouble of going out and collecting it from the post office herself, and – if possible – she would not let that happen.

She ran to her bedroom with a speed unlike anything she had run before, whereupon she quickly grabbed the closest articles of clothing which, to her advantage, were messily scattered on the floor and over a chair; a plain red shirt and some grey jeans. As soon as she put the clothes on she shoved her phone back into the pocket of her jeans and made a bee-line to the door and once she got there she heard indistinct mumblings and the ever-persisting knock on the door.

Aradia unlocked the door and grabbed the handle, twisting it. As she did she heard the person’s voice again, this time distinct.

“ARADIA, finally!” Aradia recognised to be John’s voice.

Aradia tried to slam the door in a moment of panic, but John managed to get his foot in the door just in time. She winced as he yelped in pain.

“I’m serious, please let me in. I know you’re probably upset and if I helped make you feel like that I’m really, really sorry,” John pleaded, “and I could totally complete my apology through the door with my foot wedged in here, but if you could just let me in, I could make a much more compelling argument via puppy dog eyes.”

Aradia chuckled softly and weighed the options. All this was accomplishing was making things more complicated and melodramatic so she sighed and reluctantly let him in.

John came inside and shook his foot in an attempt to regain feeling in it before finally looking up to meet Aradia’s eyes.

He froze for a moment, looking at her. She was dripping wet and her heavy hair hung like a tangled black net.  It made her look dazzling.

“Uh, alright,” Aradia said clearing her throat in an attempt to regain her nerves, “what’s up?”

“Yeah.”

“‘Yeah?’”

“No?”

“Are you okay? That wasn’t a yes or no question, Egbert...”

John mentally shook himself before asking “er, sorry, what was the question again?”

“I said ‘what’s up’, by which I meant ‘why did you come over?’”

“Well, for a starters, you never returned my texts or calls. I got worried.”

A blush crept on the girl’s cheeks. “Sorry to make you worry; I, just, uh... lost my phone.”

“You lost your phone?”

“Yes?”

John raised his eyebrows and then looked down and pointed to the phone that was protruding from her jean pockets.

“You mean, that phone?” he asked.

“Okay, that was a lie,” Aradia admitted, “sorry”.

“Well, duh,” John rolled his eyes, “Now tell me what’s wrong.”

Aradia bit her lip and shoved her hands into her pockets and shrugged her shoulders, really not wanting to admit to her night-long burst of jealousy and the mess it caused her to be.

“Aradia, you gotta tell me what’s up. Your weird friend Sollux told me-”

“Sollux?! What did he tell you?”

“Just that you were, well, upset last night, especially after seeing me?”

In response, Aradia frowned and looked away, daring not to meet John’s eyes.

“-Was it maybe that you were jealous?” John asked quietly. Aradia took her hands out her pockets to fold her arms instead, and decided she might as well cut to the chase.

“Fine. Yeah, I was.”

John tilted his head to the side, but looked hopeful anyway.  “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not?”

“Nope,” Aradia answered.  With a deep, heaving breath, she belted out, “I’ve been crushing on you a while but the realisation hit me like a brick last night when I saw you kiss that girl at the restaurant. I kinda freaked out and became a temporary sad and jealous mess.”  She let out a sigh, relieved at having gotten that off her chest.

John let out a loud whoop, jumped in the air, fist pumping, and he did a little dance that was like a cross between a jig and a chacha. Aradia couldn’t help but smile in relief seeing he was happy about this revelation, though she partially covered her mouth from secondhand embarrassment at the endearing silliness of it.

Suddenly, John stopped dancing and he spun around, grabbing Aradia and pulling her close.  Before she could even blush, he dipped her low until her hair slapped and pooled on the floor, and so quick that she got a little headrush. She briefly thought that this was the most cliché, romantic way to hold someone before kissing her.

Soon after they righted themselves and pulled away from each other, John flicked his hair and fixed his collar, wiggling his eyebrows at Aradia.  “Seems I’ve still got the moves then, huh?”

Aradia hit him playfully in the chest. “So what now? Do you wanna date or something dumb like that?  Not that I like you or anything, b-baka!” she added with a wink, clearly joking.

“Well, what would be in it for me?” John sassed right back.

Aradia flashed her most winning smile; it was most winning indeed.  “I promise to provide you company at any and all Nicolas Cage movies you want to go to so you don’t look like a loner?”

John grinned.  “It’s a deal!”

“But,” she continued, raising her finger in a faux-condescending manner, “in return you have to do the same with me with my precious Indiana Jones, but that’s not really a bad thing because who doesn’t love Indiana Jones?”

John gulped and scratched the back of his neck.  “Uh, well..”

“Jonathan Egbert,” Aradia began warningly.

“Actually ‘John’ is a different name from ‘Jonathan’, lots of people get confused—”

Aradia interrupted him as if he hadn’t spoken at all, “You have never before made any claim to dislike Indiana Jones. Don’t pull this on me now because this is a dealbreaker for our relationship.”

“I mean I’m sure the films are, well, good, I was just trying to think how to tell you that I haven’t actually...  _ seen _ ...them.”

Aradia grabbed his hand and lead him to the couch in her lounge.

“Uh, what’s going on?”

Aradia went to the TV, putting on a dvd before turning around and giving John her signature Creepy Aradia Grin, pearly whites gleaming like the polished skull of death.  “Well, you said you hadn’t seen the Indiana Jones movies, yeah?”

“Oh, so we’re going to watch one now? Okay, that’s cool. Which one?”

Aradia’s grin grew larger and more menacing.  Without missing a beat she replied “All of them.”

John let out a groan, but Aradia grabbed the remote and went back to John on the couch. She plopped down next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder.  With a contented sigh, she grabbed his hand and gave a hard little squeeze.

“Hmmm... Okay, maybe it won’t be so bad after all.”

Aradia gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before returning to her position.

“Shh! It’s starting!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2ni: The last chapter of this god damn fic I will ever have to write, there goes one thing I can stop procrastinating haha.  
> What will I be working on instead? I AM GLAD I ASKED. I’ll be working on a NEW fanfic which will be an Undertale one which will also have one character shipped with everyone (spoiler: it’s frisk) and it will hopefully be a good one, so keep an eye out for it. Unless it’s already out. Then read it.  
> Follow me at skeletonsofpuns.tumblr.com~  
> mitty: Ahh, the last chapter of this goddamned fic that I will have to edit. Wait no, I still have to write the epilogue! I know I said I wanted to finish this by Christmas, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men, eh? (I don’t actually, how does that quote go?) At least we’re going to reach a conclusion (probably) before February, with me at the helm.  
> Ahem. I tend not to write this kind of story, i.e. a light romance or “shipfic” as I call them, preferring whacky one-shots or longform epics. After this, I have some belated Christmas gift fanfics to put up, and then I think I’ll be diving back into [Breath Waker](http://archiveofourown.org/works/865118/chapters/1659612). It’s been a wild ride eh? Well it’s not quite finished yet :P


	9. Epilogue: How Do I Breathe Without You?

~Three Years Later~

John and Aradia were doing the funnest, hottest, sweatiest, stickiest possible activity that a couple can do.  “Fuck me,” Aradia whispered, her tongue lolling out from fatigue.

They were waiting in line together at a con and the AC was busted.

“I can’t believe we finally get to meet Nic Cage,” Breathed John excitedly, inhaling a cloud that was half evaporated nerd sweat, “after seven years of being his fan, I finally get to be his friend!”

“We should’ve gone to go see Andrew Hussie instead,” said Aradia, fanning herself with her phonebook-sized program.  “His signing was over on the terrace of the hotel next door so it would at least have been cool.”

John blew a raspberry.  “After the garbage ending to _Problem Sleuth Three: The Killining?_  I wouldn’t wipe my ass with his autograph after that disappointment!”

The line shuffled forward a foot and the pair obediently marched ahead before some opportunist could cut them.  “I dunno,  I think leaving some of the mysteries unsolved is the only way this fandom could’ve been satisfied, paradoxically,” said Aradia.

“He killed your fansleuth!” John snapped.  “We paid ten grand for that shit!”

“You thought it was hilarious when the page went up, and my fansleuth went down,” Aradia said, smirking at her silly boyfriend.

John was not listening.  “And when the hell’s that game coming out?  We gave Hussie like four million dollars and nothing!  I am so done with MS Paint Adve—”

Aradia clutched him tight and kissed him.  He tried to keep talking for a second or two around her lips, but eventually gave in.  The line moved ahead another foot, and the pair didn’t even notice or care when a family of four _Star Wars_ cosplayers from Minnesota stole their spot.

“Would you still love me,” Aradia asked, her hand clenched in John’s thick black hair, “if I said that I didn’t particularly like Nic Cage movies?”

“As long as you still like _Mac and Me: Mac and Three_ , I can forgive you anything,” said John, kissing her.  Three more people hopped in line in front of them.

“Oh John,” Aradia said, caressing his back.  “As long as a movie has ghosts, skeletons, zombies, Frankensteins or some other shambling undead abomination, then I can forgive it anything!”

They kissed again.  Like six people cut ahead of them in line.

 

*********

San Diego’s Gaslight District is normally a charming, romantic neighborhood.  During Comic-Con however it turns into a wild Halloween party in the middle of July.  John and Aradia were having a candlelit Italian dinner and, from their booth, they could see the streets full of posses of costumed weirdos riding in Iron Throne shaped rickshaws and having in-character rap-battles under the gaslamps, while batmobiles and drive-by movie vans had drag races on the cobblestones.  “This is the most romantic evening I have ever had,” said John, staring at Aradia over his nigh-untouched plate of shrimp scampi.

She ignored him for a second, as she was busy wolfing down her second helping of chicken parmesan.  “Keep’em coming garcon, my boyfriend’s paying!”

She wiped a bit of sauce off the corner of her mouth and smile at John.  “How long has it been?”

“Three years and three months,” said John.

“No way, I was pretty sure tonight was our anniversary,” said Aradia, quirking her eyebrow.

“Well, I count from when we got together and you count—” he cut himself off with a faked cough.   Aradia laughed at him and gave him a playful nudge under the table with her foot.

“Here’s to three more!” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

“And many more after that!”

“And lots of you-know-what in between!” She wiggled her eyebrows again, harder this time.

 

*********

The happy couple left the restaurant and went on a little midnight stroll, taking in the sights of the transformed city.  They left the gaslight district, where the fandom partying was at its craziest, and walked along the side of the marina, watching the ships rocking in the tide, listening to the sound of the waves across the estuary.  Moonlight glittered off the rippling water like silver coins tossed into the air.  Everything smelled like fish.

A family walked right past them, all of them in elaborate _Problem Sleuth Three: The Killining_ cosplay, including two children, who couldn’t have been more than eight and nine, dressed as PS himself and Hysterical Dame.

“Do you think we’ll ever be like that?” asked Aradia, elbowing John in the ribs and pointing them out.

“What? Dorks in matching coslay? We already are.”  They had gone as Finn and Rey today.  They really, really hoped that they didn’t turn out to be siblings.

Aradia snorted and covered her face with her hands.  “Nooo!  God, forget it.”

John chuckled, trying to move her hands.  “Why are you covering your face?  Are you blushing?  Wow you’re such a lame girlfriend.”

“And you are an evil, mean boyfriend!” she laughed, turning away from him so that he couldn’t see her blush.

“Like seriously, what have I not seen in three years that you feel the need to blush now?’ he asked, failing to yank away her hands from her face, and then he got a brilliant idea.  John grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close, and then he furiously tickled her armpit.

Aradia broke free and gave him a fierce right cross that snapped his head all the way to the side.  Aradia choked out a gasp.

John just chuckled.  “Wow, that hurts!” He spat out a glob of blood and straightened his glasses.

“You know I can’t help it, I hate being tickled!” Aradia said, covering her mouth again.

“When did you pick up that habit anyway?” John asked, wiggling free a broken piece of bicuspid with his tongue.

“John, shut up, we shout probably get you to the ER.”  John spat the tooth fragment into his hand.  He pocketed it.

“You are way better at hitting than that ex-boyfriend of yours that’s for sure,” said John.  “Sollux couldn’t punch worth a dick.  Sometimes when I’m down I remember him trying to punch me that one time just to cheer myself up.”  His cheek was bulging out from his tongue inspecting the damage.  “Wow I got a neat little tear in there.  Let’s go get some water so I can wash out this blood.”

“John, I’m _so_ sorry!” Aradia whined.

“I’m really going to be fine!”  John put his hand on Aradia’s shoulder and played with a strand of her hair.  He chuckled.  “You know, dad always said I should marry someone who could kick my ass.”

Aradia’s heart skipped a beat.  “You mean it, or is that some silly thing you’re saying to tease me?”

“I mean,” muttered John, rubbing the back of his head, “well, if you want to—”

 _“No,”_ Aradia snapped.

John’s face fell.  “No…?”

She covered his mouth with her hand before he could say anything more.  “John it’s not what you think.  I just don’t want _you to ask me to marry you.”_

His eyes widened in shock.  Aradia took back her hand, and took a step back.  “Because…”  She sighed deeply.  John’s face fell.

 _“Because I was gonna ask you!_ ”  She shouted.  “I mean, I was going to but I chickened out at the last second when you told that joke.  I was gonna segue from those cute kids into maybe having our own kids one day, and then I was gonna do a whole bit where I pretend I have something really serious and scary to tell you and you’d flip out in that adorable way you do thinking I was sick or something, and then _boom!_ ”

On that ‘boom’ she pulled out a little blue suede box.  John just stared at it.

“Well go on, take it, it’s not gonna bite,” Aradia said with a shy little smile.

“I’m sorry,” said John, completely unaware of how red his face was (and not just from the blood gushing out of his mouth), “I’ve just never been proposed to before!”

Aradia curled her lip.  “I can take it back, little man.”

“No!” John said, snatching the box out of her hands.  Inside was a little silver pendant with a spirograph picked out in green on one side.  The other had a blue curlique that looked like a stylized wind.  Around the edges of that side were some words.

He smiled, and read them aloud.  “How do I breathe without you, if you ever go?”

Aradia grinned back.  “How do I live without you, I want to know!”

“How do I ever, ever survive?”

“How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?”

The ram took the hare’s arm through hers and the two walked, arm in arm, back to their hotel room.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mitspeiler: [ (play this for full effect) ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oyOEykaQoo) I suppose the end of Homestuck has inspired me in a great many ways.  Not the actual ending, of which I am personally of two minds, but the fact of its finality, has opened up a new chapter in my life, or at the very least of my life as a creative person.  I’ve been in something of a depressive funk these past few months, unable to really finish any creative work, due to a number of family related reasons and the rejection of an original story from a publisher.  Because of that I kept pushing back the publication of this final chapter, first to Valentine’s Day, and then to 413.  I may be a wee bit late to that particular deadline, but it’s finished.
> 
> Now I’m back, and I intend to stay that way.
> 
> As to this story itself, I’ll have you know that the original outline we came up with literally just has “9: idk what this chapter would be, but it has to be a future snippet of john x aradia” so I had to get a wee bit creative.  First I was gonna have them living in a nice farm and watching their twelve kids running around, but no one ever likes “babies ever after” endings and I would’ve had to name all those kids.  Then I decided that the best idea was to end the story where it started, with the two of them being dorks while waiting in line to see Nic Cage.  That other ending is still canon mind you but I’m just not showing it.
> 
> Hey let’s play a fun game and name all of John and Aradia’s kids in the comments, first place winner gets a free fic commission from me, mitspeiler.
> 
> I headcanon John and Aradia are both tremendous singers, so listening to them croon at each other at three in the morning wouldn’t be terribly unpleasant.  
> Edit: I didn't think anyone would actually submit names but they did! Everyone turned in such great names, I created a composite list of my favorites:  
> Liv, June, Nic(holas), Matthew, Mark, Lucile, John Jr., Indy, Henry, Neville, Benjamin, and Cameron. The winner of the actual contest is down in the comments.  
>  
> 
> 2ni: ^^^what he said
> 
> Also don't forget to follow me if you're not already (skeletonsofpuns.tumblr.com) I'm probably not going to continue writing fanfics but if it's any consolartion I do draw (and animate) so feel free to request shit and if you ask nicely i might even draw bits from this
> 
> edit: actually I want to do a Steven universe avatar crossover so keep an eye out for that  
> 


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